Dragons and Stars, Chapter 3: Class is a Disaster

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Neal’s komodo was weary and slowing when he reached the great cleft on the bottom of the asteroid. As he turned his eager lizard down the slope to their home, he saw a gray door in the wall of the valley below him open and Hanna come lounging out.

“Okay, okay, smarty,” said Neal over the radio, to the sound of laughter.

When he made it headfirst down the hill to the door, he guided his lizard through it and inside two airlocks and down a dirt hallway to an open lighted cavern. There Grummel was standing next to a stall, holding the door open.

Neal’s lizard slithered into the stall and Neal climbed stiffly off it.

“Here now,” said Grummel, squeezing his massive form into the stall and helping Neal unclip and unseal the spacesuit-harness from the nine-foot-long komodo. Grummel pulled the opened suit off and hung it on the wall then leaned over to pull off the lizard’s texaglass helmet last.

“Watch it there,” he said to Neal, who took two healthy steps backwards as Grummel placed his large hands on the grip of the helmet and pulled it off the giant monitor lizard. It shook its head as he did so and hissed at him, but it was too weary to cause any of its normal trouble.

“Here now, Izzy,” Grummel said, lovingly stroking the back of the panting lizard which stood eyeing him suspiciously. Grummel opened the feed trough with its smelly bio-fuel and scooped out a generous clump of the slimy brown substance for Izzy.

The lizard licked its yellow tongue towards the stuff, smelling it, then after a moment inched up to it and began eating away at it. Grummel watched the lizard eat with glowing eyes, and for a moment Neal was afraid Grummel might try to plant a kiss on the back of the lizard. But Grummel straightened his seven foot mountainous body and came back out of the stall. Hanna was leaning on a closed stall door, pulling off her helmet and shaking her wild tangle of hair free of her suit collar.

“Your dad told you to mind your schooling,” she informed Grummel. Grummel groaned.

Just then a door on the other side of the cavern opened and a shorter boy with a parted mop of hair and sharp features leaned in.

“You are late to the lesson,” he said in a somewhat nasally voice.

He eyed Hanna appreciatively, then glared at Neal and Grummel.

“My dad said if you don’t get in there right away he’s going to assign extra homework.”

Grummel jumped at the word “homework” and hurried to the door, Hanna and Neal trailing somewhat less hurriedly behind.

They walked down a corridor, and then another until they came to a main lobby. In the metal floor of the lobby a wide green circular door opened down into the living area cylinder.

They each turned off their boots and grabbed a handhold by the door. Neal floated headfirst down into the cylinder in front of the others. It was a round green hallway going down into the asteroid a hundred feet, and along it various hatches opened in all directions, all turning in circles around them.

Neal drifted fifty feet down to one marked “Classroom” and grabbed the handle. Instantly he was on the merry-go-round, spinning around Hanna and Grummel. He slid the hatch open and clambered down a ladder into the room. It was a smaller room, only ten by ten, its walls hung with posters of animals, chemical compounds, and Terra.

Standing in front of a large monitor on the wall stood Mr. Brut, a tall German man with glasses. He was Mirk’s father. Mirk was sitting in his chair as though he’d been there all day, glaring at the others coming down the ladder, his eyes following Hanna.

“Stop it, Mirk,” murmured Neal, pushing his shoulder as he walked past. Mirk grabbed his shoulder as though it was broken.

“Ow!” he said, gaining Neal a stare from Mr. Brut.

“Let’s all be seated, please,” said Mr. Brut.

Just then the hatch above them slid open again and a red-haired woman poked her head down. It was the stranger.

“Hi!” she said. “Captain said I could come and watch the class. Is that all right?”

Mr. Brut looked up at her and nodded. “But of course,” he said.

She came down, without a helmet but still in her bright red astro suit. Sitting in a chair next to Neal, she put her hand on his arm and stared into his eyes. Her eyes shone like two intense green emeralds. She studied him for a moment, and Neal squirmed inside.

“You are the one in the dream,” she said.

“What dream?” Neal asked quietly.

“Let’s begin class,” said Mr. Brut to the group.

Everyone inched their chairs to face Mr. Brut, who was standing next to a large monitor, adjusting his tie. Mr. Brut was the only person on the asteroid who wore a tie, since ties were long (they hung to the knees) and were likely to be caught on turning parts. But Mr. Brut, being a scientist, would not wear anything else. In fact, Neal reflected, he didn’t think he had ever seen Mr. Brut without a tie.

“Today we are doing further studies into the komodo dragon,” Mr. Brut said. “Grummel, I believe you are first to report your findings.”

Grummel rumbled himself to a towering standing position, accidentally knocking Hanna’s chair over.

“I’m vera sorry,” he said to Hanna.

“No problem,” said Hanna, getting off the floor and setting her chair back up.

“Ahem,” said Grummel, wiping a bead of sweat off his wide forehead. “I read that komodo dragons is some of the only creatures whereat the woman of the lizards can bear

He wiped his forehead again with his great paw and peered at his paper.

“The only problem is that all of her eggs will be male dragons, which if she is all alone, means her youn’ must mate with…” Grummel turned red and stared around.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mr. Brut, “They must mate with their mother.”

Grummel turned even redder.

“Howbeit,” Grummel continued, “This process can be likely to de-grade the genetics of the ensuing lizards and is not recommended.” Grummel turned to the others.

“Thet’s why I made sure Ol’ Jack had time with each of the lady lizards,” he said earnestly.

Hanna laughed loudly. Neal noticed that the strange woman only leaned forward, listening in fascination to Grummel.

“Thank you, Grummel, for that first-hand perspective,” said Mr. Brut calmly.

“Mr. Washer, if you please…” Mr. Washer was Neal, although every time he heard it he still expected his uncle, John Washer, to peer out and reply.

Neal stood up and cleared his throat. “Komodo Dragons originally came from the island of Komodo in Indonesia,” he said. “The local people often believed the dragons were the departed spirits of their dead relatives and would sometimes offer them goats. The dragon was first discovered by westerners in 1910 by Lieutenant van Steyn van Hensbroek, who had heard rumors of large lizards. The largest komodo on record weighed 370 earth pounds.”

The strange woman gasped at this. Neal glanced at her than back at his paper.

“The average komodo weighs 150 earth pounds and is between 6 and 9 feet long,” he finished.

“Thank you, Neal,” said Mr. Brut. “Mirk, what do you have for us?”

Mirk brushed his hand through his parted hair and stood up proudly. “The Komodo Dragon’s gums are thin and its sixty serrated teeth tear them easily, so its saliva is often mixed with blood.”

Hanna made a face.

“This is provides a perfect environment for growing dangerous bacteria in its mouth,” he said.

“Dragon breath,” Neal muttered to Hanna, who giggled.

“In the wild,” Mirk went on, scowling at them, “Dragons eat carrion and hunt prey, giving them toxic saliva which can cause deadly infections in its bites.”

“That’s why we give ’em thet bio-fuel,” interuppted Grummel, “So as their bites are less dangerous.”

“Well,” said Mr. Brut, “We give them the bio-fuel, Grummel, because we don’t have any goats on hand to feed them. But yes, we also monitor the feed mixture to reduce toxicity.” Grummel looked proud.

Mirk continued, “Komodo Dragons are quite intelligent. They are picky hunters. One of their favorite delicacies is baby goat. Komodos have been observed jumping out and scaring the mother goat in order to cause her to miscarriage.” Mirk smiled broadly, then finished. “The Komodo Dragon evolved four million years ago from the same ancestor as the dinosaurs.”

“Well, Mirkus,” said Mr. Brut, “That’s not exactly right. It descended from its Varanus ancestor 40 million years ago in Asia, and then migrated to Australia, where 4 million years ago it completed developed into its current form. Scientists speculate that it grew so large in order to be able to eat pygmy elephants.”

Neal felt he was supposed to say something. But it seemed he never had exactly the right thing to say. Hanna’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Hanna?” sighed Mr. Brut.

“God created the lizards, Mr. Brut,” she said. Neal never failed to be amazed by her boldness. Or her directness.

“Science says otherwise, Ms. Gazer,” he said. “All the best scientists in the solar system agree that we evolved through a process of random natural selection.”
Hanna’s hand remained up. “But don’t some of the best scientists, such as Kim Darjeeling, think that life and DNA is too complex to have been only an accident?” she asked. “Don’t they think that perhaps some alien visitors first brought seeds of life to earth and nurtured the early forms of life?”

Mr. Brut cleared his throat. “Many cientists certainly don’t rule out the option of other life-forms having been involved in the process,” he said. “However, science deals in reality, Ms. Gazer. We do not resort to fantastic metaphysical explanations.”

“You are calling God a fantastic metaphysical explanation?” Hanna asked, her voice rising.

“Have you ever seen God?” Mr. Brut asked. “Do you know where he lives? He is a very comforting notion to some who are afraid to face the vastness of the universe by themselves and want rules and meaning.”

He clicked the monitor and typed a few words. A quote came up on the screen. “As for me, I agree with Bertrand Russell’s view on man.” He began reading the quote to the class.

“That his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of the universe in ruins.”

Mr. Brut jutted his jaw out and raised his hand with earnestness: “….Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

children without any males at hand. Thet’s called….parth…eno…genesis”

Mr. Brut began to look angry. “Listen, young lady, when you have a doctorate degree as I do, you can speak to me on these matters. But until then, you must listen and respect me!”

Neal winced inwardly as Hanna put up her hand yet again. “Sir, in the Tanakh it says, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.'”

Neal wondered whether he should climb under his chair or run for the ladder.

Mr. Brut became deadly silent. He stared at Hanna for a few moments. “I can see this class is useless,” he said. “I offered my time generously to aid in your education. But since you refuse it, I will not waste my time further. Mirkus, come.” Mr. Brut closed his folder, dragged Mirk to the ladder, and began climbing, his long tie and long coat dragging on the rungs as he left, slamming the hatch door behind him.

There was a long silence.

 

 

(Copyright, 2009, Daniel Routh)